Finally, and frustratingly, the report is not in strict chronological order, or even in order of escalation. It begins, reasonably enough, with the opening of the investigation and its decision to investigate four members of the Trump campaign. It then goes on to discuss the FBI's meeting Christopher Steele, its interviews with some of his sources, and its application for a FISA warrant against Carter Page. The report has many serious criticisms of the application for a FISA warrant and three renewals. Only after nearly 200 pages discussing warrant and serious defects in the process does the report discuss the FBI sending confidential informants to talk to members of the campaign, even though the confidential informants happened first and were a lower step of escalation. (I do not understand the reason for this sequence).
The decision to begin with the opening of the investigation is certainly reasonable, but , interestingly, it is not the first chronological event discussed in the report. Trump defenders frequently accuse the FBI with beginning the investigation (known as "Operation Crossfire Hurricane") with the Steele Dossier, which is at best a collection of third and fourth hand rumors and at worst an outright fraud. Trump critics say the investigation began when the Australian ambassador to the United Kingdom reported that George Papadopoulos had said he had spoken to Maltese professor and presumed Russian asset Joseph Mifsud, who said that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, in to form of "thousands of e-mails." Trump defenders have also argued that Mifsud was an FBI informant who made that comment to Papadopoulos, trusting that he would pass it on and give the FBI an excuse to investigate.
The report begins (p. 49) with some background. Papadopoulos made his careless remarks to the Australian ambassador in May, 2016. The ambassador does not appear to have considered them significant at the time. The Russian hacks of the DNC server became known in June, 2016. Wikileaks started publishing DNC e-mails on July 22, 2016. On July 28, 2016, the ambassador began to think these remarks were more important that he had realized and reported them to the FBI. The FBI opened its investigation on July 31, 2016 (p. 50). The Inspector General interviews of witnesses and reviews of FBI documents confirmed this sequence of events and did not turn up evidence that anything else started the investigation (pp. 56, 346). A thorough search of FBI files also failed to turn up any evidence that Mifsud was ever an FBI informant (pp. 312-313).
No contact between Crossfire Hurricane and Steele had taken place at this time. However, that was not for any lack of effort on Steele's part. Steele appears to have reached out the the FBI in early July and provided an agent with one of his reports on July 5, 2016 (p. 95). He appears to have been well aware that he was hired by associates of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign (p. 96). Steele provided another report on July 19, which his handler passed up the chain of command to the New York Field Office (NYFO) (p. 98). The NYFO appears to have informed Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who passed the tip on to Crossfire Hurricane in August 25, 2016 (p. 99). Crossfire Hurricane first received Steele's reports on September 19, 2016 (p. 100) and began investigating (p. 101). Crossfire Hurricane personnel made inquiries about Steele on September 23 and held a telephone conference about setting up a meeting on September 27 (p. 103). The first in-person meeting took place in early October (p. 18). In short, Steele appears to have been reaching out to the FBI before the investigation began, but his research only became part of the investigation about a month after it opened, and Crossfire Hurricane agents did not meet with Steele until over two months after beginning the investigation. Significantly, then Steele contacted the FBI after the DNC hack became public, but before Wikileaks published DNC e-mails. The first contacts between also took place after the July 23, 2016 Yahoo News publication sourced to a Steele leak (more on that later).
So if Operation Crossfire Hurricane did not begin with an investigation of the Steele Dossier, how did it begin? Upon receiving a tip from the Australian ambassador, the FBI decided to open an investigation, and not to notify the Trump campaign, lest it change its presumed contact with Russian intelligence (p. 55). The standard to launch such an investigation is low -- no more than an "articulable factual basis" to believe that there is a threat to national security (pp. 56-57). A Sensitive Investigative Matter (as this obviously was) requires special consideration about the seriousness of the danger and special care to use the least intrusive method. In addition, the FBI Office of General Counsel must review the investigation, the Section Chief must approve it, and the National Security Division must be notified (pp. 21-22).
The FBI's first action was to undertake an open source and FBI database search on members of the Trump campaign to see which were mostly likely to be points of contact with Russian intelligence (p. 59). They found four likely suspects to make targets of investigation. Carter Page (a fairly low level foreign policy advisor) had extensive business ties to Russia, had traveled to Russia in July, and was the subject of an ongoing counterintelligence investigation by the FBI in New York. Paul Manafort, the campaign manager, had been an advisor to and lobbyist for the pro-Russian party in Ukraine. Papadopoulos was flagged for the communications that started the investigation. Michael Flynn was flagged for his ties to Russian entities and for appearing on Russia Today (p.60). The individual investigations were apparently opened on August 10, 2016 (p. 78) The next step was to draw up profiles based in materials in FBI records, and to ask other government agencies for materials to contribute to the profiles (p. 78).
Page was considered the most likely point of contact because of his pre-existing contacts with Russian intelligence and because he was already under investigation for them (pp. 61-62). However, the FBI received information from "another U.S. government agency" that Page had worked for it from 2008 to 2013 (p. 79). In other words, Page worked for the CIA, and his contacts with Russian intelligence agents may have been in order to spy on them. For some reason, the report is extremely cagey about naming the agency involved. This fact should have been taken into account in further investigations, but was not.
The Inspector General concluded that the decision to open an investigation, to conduct open source and internal files investigation, and choose these four particular targets met the low standard of opening an investigation -- an "articulable factual basis." (pp. 347-354, 410), that the investigation was opened for an "authorized purpose" (p. 347), and that the use of open sources and FBI internal materials was appropriate as as "less intrusive technique" (p. 355). It found no evidence of improper political motivation. Although texts exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page showed improper political bias. However, it found that Page had no role in he decision to open the investigation and that, while Strzok did have such a role, others were also involved in the decision, and that he did not act unilaterally (pp. 348-349). They found no evidence of improper political motivation among any of the other participants in the decision to open the investigation (pp. 349-350).
I will add that in my own opinion, the standard for an open source investigation probably does not need to be very high. Open source investigation, after all, is just investigative journalism, and anyone can do it. And internal FBI records, though not publicly accessible, are freely accessible to the FBI. At the same time, there has to be some sort of threshold. Investigative journalism is a labor intensive process, and FBI time and effort is a limited resource. Besides, so much information is public now that a thorough-going investigation, even one limited to open sources, can be quite intrusive.
The report found that all necessary requirement for such a sensitive investigation were met (p. 353). At the same time, the report expressed concern that the FBI had unilateral authority to make such decisions in matters as sensitive as a Presidential campaign. It proposed that high level Justice Department approval should be required (pp.353-354, 411). I am not convinced. It would not reassure me to know that the Jeff Sessions or William Barr Justice Department approved an investigation into a Democratic candidate for President, and I doubt that Republicans would be reassured that an investigation was approved by the Eric Holder or Merrick Garland Justice Department. At the same time, it would over burden federal courts to require a warrant for matters of low intrusiveness. Maybe there should be a quasi-judicial section of the Justice Department with authority to grant internal authorization for politically sensitive investigations, perhaps with a "devil's advocate" lawyer to make arguments against the authorization.
Next up: Between opening and FISA.
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